the fifo wife

I whipped this one morning last week when I needed the kitchen to warm up..it requires a long bake of an hour and twenty five but prep wise it’s so simple and just a little bit yum..also won me lots of brownie points with the kids.

Donna Hays Chocolate Mud Cake

What you will need: 

250g unsalted butter, chopped

200g dark chocolate, chopped

1 1/3 cups of milk

1 1/2 cups of caster sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups of plain flour sifted

1/4 cup of self raising flour sifted

1/4 cup of coco sifted, extra for dusting

How to:

Pre heat oven to 150c.

Place the butter, chocolate, milk, sugar and vanilla in a large saucepan over a medium heat and stir occassionally for six minutes or until melted and smooth. Set aside to cool slightly. Add the eggs and whisk to combine. Pour into a large bowl, add the flours and cocoa and whisk until smooth.

Pour into a slightly greased 22cm round tin lined with non stick paper (I actually didn’t line it  I just greased it really well..l’m a lazy baker came out just fine but each to their own) and cook for 1 hour and 25 minutes or until its cooked when tested with a skewer.

Allow to cool completely before removing from the tin. Dust with cocoa and serve with cream.

** This will naturally sink and crack..

Before I had this blog I had journals; they were the only thing I had to talk to and while getting ready for taxes today came across some and well I just reread one of them…forgive the writing but I was angry, exhausted, being a little bit selfish and at this stage I was just a little depressed too but didn’t really know it yet…

11th May 2010

I haven’t been here awhile….I have been here but not here? Make sense? So yesterday I went to the doctors to see if perhaps my constant crankiness which has been keeping me so occupied because it takes a lot of effort to be in a constant bad mood…could be fixed. I lost it the other day. Lost it and he couldn’t come home. The first time in five years I have asked him and he couldn’t come home but he did help the best he could. He got mum.  Mum has been and gone and got the boys so I can rest. I have cried and rested and now that I am rested I thought I owed it to them to see if it could be something other than just an over worked under loved housekeeper/babysitter. I so want it to be a thyroid problem…but she (my doctor) thinks I’m depressed….but Im not sad…I’m cranky… I don’t want to be told I’m depressed and I know that it’s a legitimate disease I know many women that suffer this condition but that not me I’m not sad….I’m exactly the opposite…I’m just the cranky woman on the corner with a house that too big and has far too many animals and probably too many children too…

Date unknown…

It should be mentioned somewhere here I started taking what I like to refer to as my crazy lady pills..

So maybe she (my doctor) was right…perhaps I was “depressed” and whilst I didn’t want to die I didn’t think anyone would miss me if I was gone ..I have never cried..I felt nothing for anything…anything and everything was an effort…I was tired…I was cranky…angry…I felt guilty…it was dark and lonely and I never ever want to go back there. I’m still embarrassed to have had a label like “depressed” put against my name but now I’m okay with it…well sort of…Im getting there. I’m a mum to three young boys doing it on my own for a month at a time…I was told by a family member that I need to take my own advice because apparently I give good no nonsense advice so that’s what I’m doing…what would I say to myself and I am listening and you know so far its working…so far..

 2nd June 2010

So it happened last night…just like that….I woke this morning and that indifference to whether they are here or not, the dread of facing them every morning has gone…the fear that I’m going to lose it over something ridiculous has gone…now my heart is beating too fast because I’m really happy and whilst I’m terrified this feeling will disappear and I will slip back to what I was I’m now I’m hoping to make up for lost time…but the best part the part I’m most grateful for…they know something’s different because they are all over me..They know and they don’t care about last week or the week before… they just care about now…how very lucky is I…

I know a journal or a diary depending where you’re from it’s all very Oprah and Anne of Green Gables like but at a time when I thought I could tell nobody because I was ashamed writing down my thoughts and fears was all that kept me sane for awhile. It saved me from being lonely and it gave me the opportunity for reflection. It got me through another day, another week. Writing down your feelings can help you see a situation more clearly; giving a step back to look at the bigger picture. It can help reduce stress and learn to understand yourself better and where’s the negative in that. It can help resolve problems better, keeps you creative; a natural stress reducer in its self and writing it causes you to slow down and meditatively think.

Despite it being a nerdy or kitschy way to while away the hours writing  journals has been around for centuries its how history has been documented. After all how would we have known that Bridget Jones also wore granny pants or that King Edward had a table made especially for sex if someone hadn’t journal about their day. And there is increasing evidence to support the idea that journaling has a positive impact on a person’s physical well-being. University of Texas at Austin psychologist and researcher James Pennebaker suggests that regular journaling strengthens immune cells, called T-lymphocytes. Other research indicates that journaling decreases the symptoms of asthma and rheumatoid arthritis.

So keeping a journal is good for you. Now I use my journal for goals and ideas for what I want from life and what I want for my family. My writing is no longer  just about my mother guilt on how my five year old son like to use the word sh*t or how terrified I am that the birds and bees are fast approaching as my eight year old has sparked the interest of a little girl from school.

Keeping a journal will document life in 2013; something you could romantically pass on to your children, it keeps you on track as well as increasing your well being so it’s a win win unless of course your mother finds it and reads your best friend is having sex at 13 years old then it all tends to go down the toilet and a journal entry has caused more stress than its released. The lesson of reflection here is always be prepared for someone finding it.

Do you keep a diary? Do you think it’s been helpful? Do you reread them? Have you ever read some ones else’s?

xx Deb

I have sick kid at home at least he says he is sick; I don’t think he is but because I’m not sure he is banished to his room with just books to read. It’s the new sick kid rule in our house they are to stay in their room no TV, no movies and no electronic equipment unless of course a set of electronic paddles are required and then I know he is sick..enter more mother guilt. After all if they’re sick all they should be doing is to resting so two hours and twenty minutes in I think he and I are thinking the same thing he could have probably gone to school.

Despite being ‘sick’ he is annoying me. I hate being taken for a ride so if he doesn’t take his supposedly sick bum back to bed as he currently is hanging out in the hallway taunting me with can I have some morning tea mum? It will be firmly taken back to school.

So here are the few things running through my head this Monday morning.

1. Yes I am in a bad mood. It’s really that simple. Not sure why I am. I’m hoping the shower I am yet to have will readjust just my attitude.

2. I need to speak to the principal about my eldest sons teacher…actually me and five other parents…they are however all to chicken as we just discovered the principal is the teacher in questions sister..but if we are all talking home schooling if the same teacher is had next year someone’s got to ‘man up’ I can’t home school him, keep my sanity and his safety guaranteed.

3. I wish Princess Kate would uncross her legs, go eat a curry or go on a bumpy ride I don’t care which. I’m over it just as I am sure she is…

4. After much self analyses – actually the ten minutes I have been sitting here I think my bad mood is a result of not being able to go on my normal walk with the dogs this morning. I forgot my poodles lead and at 14 years she is going blind and also a little deaf. Walking her is like walking with my mother sigh so at 530 am in the morning she needs a little help with direction but this morning because I forgot the lead she got lost four times. Four times I had to walk back and pick her up as she sat in the middle of the dark and howled for me. So after 15 minutes we cut it short and I cuddled her home. Getting old is nasty and that is enough to put anyone in a bad mood.

5.  Speaking of old have a look at these cool older ladies.

6. Want to annoy someone who clearly dislikes you breathing…head here…it works every single time.

7. Watch this and you will forever be grateful of the humble light switch and everything else you have in your life.

8. Jill Meagher killer Adrian Ernest Bayley receives a 35 year sentence and is appealing because he thinks manifestly excessive. If this man isn’t locked away for life then our justice system is manifestly excessively out of date. Read more here.

9. It’s official when you swear it doesn’t hurt as much…seriously a study found it to be so..

10. Bindy Erwin wants to put implant 11 year old girls with a contraceptives…these are her reasons…what do you think?

Have a great day sweets.

Xx Deb